Of drills and bones: Giovanni Ghedini and the origin of bone marrow biopsy.

Bone marrow (BM) studies are pivotal for the diagnosis of haematological disorders. Their introduction into clinical haematology dates back to the work of Giovanni Ghedini (1877-1959), an Italian physician who first conceived BM sampling in 1908. Ghedini's proposal stemmed from his clinical experience and from the scientific developments that characterised his epoch. By presenting selected passages of Ghedini's publications, this report considers the theoretical and historical bases of his work and analyses its practical implications for modern haematology.

A methodology to assess indirect economic impacts of animal disease outbreaks: A case of hypothetical African swine fever outbreak in Switzerland.

Indirect costs of animal disease outbreaks often significantly exceed the direct costs. Despite their importance, indirect costs remain poorly characterized due to their complexity. In this study, we developed a framework to assess the indirect costs of a hypothetical African swine fever outbreak in Switzerland. We collected data through international and national stakeholder interviews, analysis of national disease control regulations and industry data. We developed a framework to capture the resulting qualitative and quantitative data, categorize the impacts of these regulations, and rank the impacts in order of importance. We then developed a spreadsheet model to calculate the indirect costs of one category of control measure for an individual group of stakeholders. We developed a decision tree model to guide the most economically favourable implementation plan for a given control measure category, under different outbreak scenarios. Our results suggest that the most important measure/impact categories were 'Transport logistics', 'Consumer demand', 'Prevention of wild boar and domestic pig contact' and 'Slaughter logistics'. In our hypothetical scenario, the greatest costs associated with 'Prevention of wild boar and domestic pig contact' were due to assumed partial or total depopulation of fattening pig farms in order to reduce herd size to comply with the simulated control regulations. The model also provides suggestions on the most economically favourable strategy to reduce contact between wild boar and domestic pigs in control areas. Our approach provides a new framework to integrate qualitative and quantitative data to guide disease control strategy. This method could be useful in other countries and for other diseases, including in data- and resource-poor settings, or areas with limited experience of animal disease outbreaks.

Serum amyloid A levels and alpha 2 and gamma globulins on serum protein electrophoresis in cats exposed to and infected with Leishmania infantum.

BACKGROUND: Dogs are the main reservoir hosts of Leishmania infantum; nevertheless, recent investigations indicate a likely role for cats in the epidemiology of Leishmania infection. Feline leishmaniosis (FeL) remains poorly characterised, partly due to the lack of suitable diagnostic tools. This study aimed to compare serum amyloid A (SAA) levels and serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) profiles (specifically, alpha 2 and gamma globulins) in cats naturally exposed to or infected by L. infantum from southern Italy versus those of healthy controls and versus cats with neoplastic or inflammatory conditions from non-endemic areas. METHODS: Serum or plasma samples from four cohorts of cats were analysed for SAA levels and by SPE: (i) G1: healthy controls from Leishmania-non-endemic regions of Switzerland; (ii) G2: cats pre-diagnosed with neoplastic or inflammatory conditions available from the University of Cambridge sample archive; (iii) G3: L. infantum-seropositive, quantitative (q)PCR-negative cats from southern Italy; (iv) G4: L. infantum-seropositive and qPCR-positive cats from southern Italy. SAA data were assessed for normality and homoscedasticity using the Shapiro-Wilk and Levene's tests, respectively; the Kruskall-Wallis test, followed by Dunn's test with Bonferroni correction were subsequently used to compare SAA serum levels between groups. A weighted generalised linear model with a binomial distribution was used to assess statistically significant differences in the numbers of animals displaying elevated gamma globulins and increased alpha 2 globulins between groups. RESULTS: Overall, 68 samples were analysed (G1: n = 16, G2: n = 20, G3: n = 20, G4: n = 12). Cats suffering from neoplastic and inflammatory conditions (G2 ) showed significantly higher SAA levels than healthy controls (G1) (median values [interquartile range]: G1: 0.00 [0.00-0.00] mg/l versus G2: 0.85 [0.00-49.55] mg/l). G2, G3 and G4 cats showed higher percentages of individuals with increased alpha 2 globulins (percentages ± standard error: G1 = 20.0% ± 10.3, G2 = 80.0% ± 8.9, G3 = 70.0% ± 10.2, G4 = 75.0% ± 12.5) and gamma globulins (G1 = 0.0% ± 0, G2 = 65.0% ± 10.7, G3 = 50.0% ± 11.2, G4 = 58.3% ± 14.2) than healthy control cats (G1). For all three markers, no significant difference between cats within G2, G3 and G4 was recorded. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that the proportions of animals with elevated levels of alpha 2 and gamma globulins are significantly higher in cats exposed to and infected with L. infantum. Levels of SAA and alpha 2 and gamma globulins may not be used to differentiate between L. infantum infection or exposure, and neoplastic and/or inflammatory conditions.

Antimicrobial consumption: Comparison of three different data collection methods.

The increasing incidence of antimicrobial resistance represents a global threat. As a result, surveillance programmes monitoring antimicrobial consumption and resistance in animals have been implemented in several countries throughout the world. However, such programmes depend on the accurate and detailed collection of data on antimicrobial consumption. For this reason, the aim of this longitudinal study was to compare the consistency of data on antimicrobial consumption between three different data collection methods. Antimicrobial consumption data associated to udder health were collected from 20 veterinary practices and 92 dairy farms for 18 months. The compared data sources were: 1) data extracted from veterinary practice software 2) farm treatment journals and 3) on-farm discarded drug packages (garbage). Two different procedures were chosen to analyse the data issued from treatment journals: 1) only complete entries were analysed 2) entries with missing dosage were supplemented with the information provided by the Swiss Compendium of Veterinary Medicinal Products. The antimicrobial data were divided into intramammary preparations used during lactation (IMM), intramammary preparations used for dry off (DRY) and systemic treatments (SYS). We compared the quantities of injectors (IMM and DRY), the quantities of active substances (SYS) and the treatment incidences (TI) for the defined daily dose (DDD) per 1000 cow-days (IMM and SYS) and the defined course dose (DCD) per 1000 cow-days (DRY). Additionally, the variety of antimicrobial products among the different data sources was compared. The highest quantity of antimicrobials for IMM, DRY and SYS could be collected with the software data. The lowest quantity was collected by using the data of the treatment journal with only complete entries. For IMM and DRY, software and garbage performed similar, with agreement on the number of injectors used in 56.1% of the analysed cases. The widest variety of intramammary antimicrobial preparations was found in the garbage whilst most systemic preparations were collected using software data. The results of the study show a lack of data consistency between the three different data sources. None of the methods was able to collect the integral antimicrobial consumption in the participating farms. Finally, the results emphasise the need to implement a standardised system to quantify and assess the antimicrobial consumption at veterinary practice and farm level.